Mariam Mariam
My mind has been dragging like an old locomotive I train over the past week, largely because I have been Lin wind down mode. The reason is that 1 began my annual vacation last week, and had decided that I was going to attempt a most illusionary escape from the realities of daily existential problems which I have endeavoured to confront, week-in, week-out, on this page. How I have succeeded thus far is implicit in this narrative.
But where should I start from? What should be a convenient point of embarkation on this peculiar trip? Let’s see; I think last week is appropriate, but be warned, because even that event has its roots in nine years ago (don’t mind the awkwardness of this statement please!). Last week, I was on “attachment” at TAIJO WONUKABE, a communication consultancy based in Lagos, run by three truly marvelous Nigerians, Taiwo Obe, Chido Nwakamma and Ogbenyi Egbe.
The story started in 1997 when I was working as the General Manager of the Kwara State Television Service in llorin. These gentlemen had been contracted to re-organize THE HERALD, a once vibrant newspaper, which has become a shadow of itself over the years o f political interference and mismanagement under military rule.
We had been neighbours in a collection of government chalets and over a period of several months, 1 became drawn to the fascinating insights they had about the workings of the media, their innovative work ethic and the effervescence which they brought to everything they did. Ogbenyi, for instance, would seat from sunup to sundown without respite, working on the computer, trying out some design or the other. So one of those days, I had made a vow that I would take a few days of my vacation, sometime in the future, to go to their office, learn several sides of the media which they seem to have mastered and generally just soak in as much of the ambience about them as I possibly could in a week. Whenever I got the opportunity to speak to, or meet any of them, I reminded them of that vow from 1997.
Last week Monday was the first day of my annual leave, but by sweet coincidence, I arrived in Lagos from the weekend, first to attend a wedding ceremony and then fulfill the determination from so many years ago to become an intern at TAIJO WONUKABE, learning all about Public Relations, Marketing Communication, the application of computer graphics in new media formats and generally watching how these guys have impacted on the nation’s media system in the past decade or so. f also tried to live the illusion that I was far away from Abuja, tried to divorce myself from Nigerian politics.
Lagos with its chaos, the anarchy, the vibrant human spirit and decay that confront one wherever you turn, is the most poignant reminder of what politics is and what it has done or not done to the Nigerian people. Sometimes, the humidity of the city overpowers me, as one gets caught up in the incessant traffic jam which has become a hallmark of daily existence in that conurbation. The persistent street vendors of Lagos are both irritant and fun, and would do everything to convince you to buy wares ranging from spectacles, wristwatches, household wares, pornographic compact discs through to puppies and as someone, obviously tongue-in-cheek, told me, even ‘tokunbo ’ human beings can be supplied if the price is right. People respond to the anarchy and decay around them with an aggressiveness that could be frightening and they seem to permanently talk at each other at the top of their voices.
But Lagos has a charm all about it that is unique; that perhaps explains why those who have been living in it for a very lone time just find it difficult to relocate to other parts of the country. It is the city of style and chic, the heart of innovation and a pacesetter for a lot that has happened in the arts, in show business, in post-modern Nigerian architecture, even in crimes and much more besides!
It took me three hours to move from Allen Avenue, in Ikeja, to Surulere last Tuesday lunch time. It was obvious that the taxi driver had not heard the warning on radio that some routes were impassable that day, because in trying to avoid the more notorious points he entered an even worse jam. We had been caught up in that, with everybody sweating and with frayed nerves when suddenly people started running from the direction we faced: cars attempting to turn, motorcyclists dropping their passengers and people walking hitherto now running. Where they were headed for, nobody could tell, neither was anyone prepared to tell the next person what it was they were running away from. What was obvious was that something was brewing not too far from where I was caught up like a seating duck in a taxi cab which could not pull out of the horrible and now increasingly frightening and potentially life threatening, gridlock.
It was not long after that we saw what had triggered the pandemonium; a group of mobile policemen were obviously in the entourage of an individual, but somehow were now running to save their own lives, while an assortment of urban lumpen elements, shopkeepers and others’, each holding stones, cutlasses, iron bars and other weapons were in chase. As the policemen found their escape, a group of the lumpen elements set upon a young lady and started to harass Her; she desperately stood her grounds and a few minutes later she was left to continue her journey to wherever. It ended almost as fast as the chaos had built up. The taxi driver finally made his detour and entering all manners of back streets and bumpy alleyways, he found his way to Surulere. I had been in that crazy traffic situation for three hours, soaked in my sweat, emotionally drained and frankly without an appetite for work that day. But that is a typical day at the office for the Lagosian. I have always wondered whether we can still reclaim Lagos for civilized existence for the Nigerian people. During the 1990s, I read a very nostalgic description of the beauty of the Lagos of his childhood by the Nigerian Professor of Architecture, David Aradeon; that was the Lagos of the nineteen fifties. He had described scenes of orderly existence, of open spaces which invited young children of all classes to play and know each other. There was the exquisiteness of Victorian Lagos, described by Professor Michael Echeruo, that Herbert Macaulay typified and which would later be the city of generations of outstanding newspapermen and lawyers, railway workers, musicians and writers; the city that became the capital of culture and great politicians, a vibrant nightlife which produced legendary and colourful individuals; the incredible human wave and migrations, including a once very vibrant Brazilian community and their quarters, about whom I made an AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE programme for the BBC in 1996. Lagos has always being the city of a culture which gave Nigeria the vivaciousness that lit the fire of the anti-colonial struggle in our country. Can we reclaim such a Lagos from the decay and chaos of today?
Atiku Abubakar: A welcome riposte However, tried as much as 1 did, I could not resist the pull of politics. Last week, it became public news that Vice President Atiku Abubakar was going to defy all the odds to express publicly his desire to run in next year’s elections. The ‘‘significance of Atiku’s declaration is not in whether or not he gets to achieve the presidency eventually, “‘o matter what his shortcomings might be and as both a human being and a politician, those are several, but he has found a place in the struggle to save democracy by resolutely opposing the third term agenda along with other patriots.
For his resolute stand, Atiku Abubakar has suffered all manners of humiliation in the hands of the cowardly despot, Olusegun Obasanjo, whose stock in trade is to try to destroy all those who assisted his rise to the top. The fact that Atiku has defied that man to express his right is already a victory which cannot be taken away from him. That was a fitting riposte. I think he was right when he said that it is the Nigerian people who should have the right to reject Atiku Abubakar or any other candidate for that matter, not a vindictive despot. This I believe is the essence of Atiku Abubakar’s declaration last week.
Obasanjo! Back to school from prison?
It was also last week that I read somewhere that Obasanjo said that he would enroll as a student at the National Open University of Nigeria at the end of his tenure. It struck me that it as very important for him to also make enquiry from the nearest offices of the Nigerian Prisons Services if their inmates are allowed to undergo long distance training programmes, including degree courses. This is important because given all the crimes that he has committed against the Nigerian people: the illegal shares he has purchased from his dubious privatization programme; the money he collected for his dubious library project; the voodoo manner that he’s been running the oil industry without accountability and transparency and other crimes we might not know about now, it is most likely that the despot will do his long distance learning for a degree from his old address, the cells of Yola prison. The bravura by his Special Assistant, Uba Sani, the other day that Obasanjo is not afraid of what might happen to him after May 2007 is just that, bravura. Obasanjo is SCARED STIFF, because he knows that he has done a lot which cannot stand scrutiny. We are waiting patiently for him to vacate Aso Villa
The Peter Odili challenge
As the race for 2007 heats up, it appears that if one candidate has taken the whole thing very seriously, that person is Dr Peter Odili, the governor of Rivers State. Odili has been criss-crossing the country, he has been collecting chieftaincy titles from all parts of the country and he has decorated cities and towns all over with huge billboards. Dr Peter Odili has become the most visible face of the South-South challenge for the presidency. There is of course a lot to interrogate in that challenge.
It is important to put the issue in a context; in Northern Nigeria, the groundswell of feeling today is to secure the presidency by the region after eight years of the Obasanjo presidency. It is in the context of that longing that we now have a surfeit of candidates from the North: General Buhari, General Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, General Marwa, Saminu Turaki, Ahmed Makarfi, Umaru Yar’Adua, Abdullahi Adamu, Sani Yerima, General Aliyu Gusau, Dauda Birma, Prof. Jerry Gana and who knows who else might express interest tomorrow?
This is where the problem lies for the North. There are many candidates in a race that still has the underlining context of the intentions of Obasanjo to control the levers of power, despite all the public declarations to the contrary. There can be no gainsaying the fact that many of these candidates have very formidable political profiles, but it seems that a damaging war of attrition might be on the cards in the weeks and months ahead, unless very coolheaded political calculations are made to protect the interest of the North in the long run. Otherwise, so much energy will be dissipated and in the process, the North will fall into the ambush which the Obasanjo clique has been carefully constructing since the defeat of the third term agenda.
The Odili challenge comes in here, because Dr Peter Odili has been sweeping through the states, has built a very wide network around the country and has the resources to prosecute the challenge. I believe that at heart, the point for him is that if the party does not go for a Northern candidate, then he has sufficiently positioned himself amongst the party men and the apparatchik to be the most visible face of a South-South alternative. This is why in my view, Dr Odili’s strategists have placed a great deal of emphasis on a very high visibility in all the centres of political and traditional power around the country, and why he has also made a lot of efforts to woo high profile individuals, institutions and groups around the country. But can a South-South challenge genuinely stand up in the burning sun of Nigerian politics or will it fizzle out when push comes to shove? Is the political establishment prepared to entrust the fate of the nation’s political system in the untried hands of the South-South and by extension, Peter Odili? What exactly are the political calculations that Obasanjo is making, especially as concerns his fate after he vacates the seat of power? Can he trust Peter Odili to cover his tracks and not cave into a national mass mobilization to probe and possibly jail him?
These are questions amongst many, which will have to be answered in the next couple of weeks, including the more politically sensitive one of whether in fact it is feasible for power to remain in the South after eight years of the Obasanjo administration. Politics in Nigeria, as elsewhere, remains a cloak-and-dagger affair, and those steeped in its ways know how they balance the various contending interests to protect the hegemony of the ruling class, as we saw in 1998/1999 with the emergence of Obasanjo. What is different today is that Obasanjo has dealt the political process far more blows than those who imposed him on the country bargained for. It is the bitter fallout of the Obasanjo tenure which will condition the entire transition process.
